Only 8% of UK shoppers say that they would like to receive location-based mobile coupons while they are in the supermarket. According to a new study by U.K.-based Evolution Insights, the majority of shoppers (51%) said that they would rather receive their coupons before going to the store than when they are already in the supermarket.

That is not to say that consumers in the UK don’t want to use their smartphones to receive coupons at all. Indeed, only a minority (36%) of respondents said that they would not “consider the use of digital media for initiatives such as digital coupons and shopping lists at all.” Judging from the results of this study, though, most consumers today are not interested in what many location-based startups expect to be their main tool for generating revenue.

While there has been a lot of hype around location in the tech world over the last few months, these sobering results show that this technology is still far away from mainstream adoption. As Evolution Insight’s lead analyst James Johnson notes, “the rise of GPS enabled smartphones brings opportunities to target shoppers with marketing based upon their actual location. But do grocery shoppers really want to be interrupted with the latest coupons and deals on their mobile when they walk past or enter the supermarket?”

It’s worth noting that just a month ago, a similar study in U.S. found higher acceptance rates for in-store coupon delivery. This study, however, also found that only about 14% of U.S. shoppers currently use mobile coupons.

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Frederic Lardinois founded SiliconFilter in 2011. Before starting this site, he wrote about 1,500 articles for ReadWriteWeb. His areas of interest are consumer web and mobile apps, as well as Internet-connected devices like cars, smart sensors and toasters.
You can reach him at [email protected]